Careful what you Wish for
by Jadely
Summary: While minding his own business, Shadow unintentionally releases an ancient genie and, surprise surprise, ends up angering him. Now, he must become the new genie until he can grant the wishes of the next finder of the lamp.
1. Meet Genie

So, I'm not sure why, but I got this idea while doing dishes a while back... kinda weird. Just the same, I thought I'd give it a try. It will be a ShadAmy.

Nope. I don't own anyone.

* * *

_"Be careful what you wish for- you just might get it all."_

Frothing ocean tides, calm, moonlit deserted beach, a clear skies full of stars- just the kind of area Shadow liked. Stepping out of the suburban forest he had spent the last hour or so in, a rare, small smile lit his lips. Having done nothing but wander around the city all day, this seemed to be the perfect way to end the day off. He dropped onto the sand and let it press through his quills, cringing at the odd feeling. The only thing he wanted to do was let his mind go blank, to hear the waves splashing against the shore, maybe even sleep. But he couldn't. His mind kept racing back to earlier that day when he had walked by a park in the city. He really had only been looking for a park bench to rest on, but a near by birthday party had kept him from getting any rest. As he was getting up to leave, he overheard who he supposed was the child's parent say "Hurry, make a wish!" to the boy. Curious, he turned to watch the young boy squeeze his eyes shut for a moment, as if in deep thought, then open them and blow all over his cake in attempts to extinguish the flames on the candles. Shadow gave a look of disgust and walked away with his appetite suddenly gone.

_What's the point of a wish if it doesn't do anything for you? _He thought bitterly. _It doesn't get you anywhere. It doesn't help you. All it really does is gives you a false sense of hope. If you want something to happen then you have to make it happen yourself._

And now, as he lay there on the beach, Shadow realized that he had never wished for anything. He never wished that Maria hadn't died- he just never wanted it to happen. Wishing it hadn't happened wouldn't change anything. He had never wished to know who he really was or what his purpose was. What would that do for him? He had never wished for a better life. What was the point? No, he had never wished for anything.

Feeling a heat in his face, he growled and stood. _No point in getting mad over worthless things. _He massaged his temples rhythmically while walking towards the water. When his mind was blank, he took his hands from his face and walked down the shore, all the while careful not to get his shoes wet. A whispering breeze blew lazily across the water, forming a few clouds in the sky. More calmly this time, he continued his train of thought.

_And what purpose does making a wish serve at celebrations? It has nothing to do with what the celebration is about in the first place._ He looked back to the trees. _Must be that false sense of hope they like._

An unexpected tide suddenly jolted him away from the shore and towards a small hole filled with water that he hadn't noticed until it was too late to avoid. His foot dove straight into the wet sand, forcing him down. _Great._ He tried pulling his foot out, but that only seemed to make his foot sink faster. After a second, he could feel what he figured to be a rock at the bottom, so guessing that his foot wouldn't sink anymore seemed to be a safe assumption. Using the rock as a base, he pushed up off it and then swiped his foot up, sending a pile of sand flying into the air. His foot was free. He took a seat in front of the hole and undid his soggy shoe, slowly scraping the sand out. Knowing it would take a while for his shoe to dry, he slid off his other one, too, and taking one in each hand, began walking in his bare feet, which was something he was totally unused to. Just as he was beginning to enjoy the feeling of the sand between his toes, he was knocked down again by a blast from behind him.

"Now what!" he yelled. Turning, his look changed from fury to amazement, for out of the hole he had stepped in came a sparkling purple aura. An old-fashioned, sandy lamp floated out of the hole and into the glowing radiance, seeming to absorb it. Slowly, a deeper purple silhouette emerged from the spout of the lamp until it formed into the shape of a large bellied, mystical man.

"I," he stated in deep, solemn voice, "am the genie of the lamp. You have released me."

Shadow blinked. "Who?"

"The genie of the lamp," he man repeated more deeply. "I can give you whatever you desire most; what ever you want."

Shadow stood and brushed himself off. "Whatever I want," he repeated slowly.

The genie nodded. "Your wish is my command."

_Of course. _Shadow clenched his fists, scowling. "Wishes are lies," he stated plainly. "Which must make you a liar. Keep your 'wishes' for yourself. I don't need them." He turned his back fully intending to continue his walk.

"HOW DARE YOU!" the genie roared furiously. "I have been buried in that sand for thousands of years, waiting for someone to discover me, and finally when I'm found it is by an ignorant idiot who cannot see though his own stupidity!"

"Ignorant idiot!" fumed Shadow, spinning on his bare heels. "Obviously you must be the stupid one. Do you have any idea who you're dealing with?"

"A fool that does not think before speech! Now you must face my wrath!" he replied.

"Think again," Shadow said threateningly. He jumped at him, but to his amazement, he flew right through him. Growling, he yelled, "Assemble yourself and fight me!"

The genie threw his head back, roaring with laughter. Wiping a nonexistent tear from his eyes, he continued. "Truly, you will learn your lesson." He closed his eyes, and suddenly his gentle purple color changed to a dark, deathly red.

"Abra-" Shadow felt his feet gently lift off ground. His head was spinning. He tired to move, to fight back, to do anything. But even his mouth wouldn't move. "Cabadra!" In a mess of spark and noise and color, the last thing he saw were the small, dusky clouds forming across the sky, and the spin chilling red of the genie.


	2. So It Begins

Darkness was the only thing Shadow felt when his eyes opened. He touched his head lightly, surprised at the calmness of the room. Having seen the situation he had gotten into, he had almost expected to wake up in some sort of murderous pain yet he couldn't feel even the slightest headache coming on. He tried to make out any shapes in the room, but nothing was visible through the dark. Slowly he sat up and shook his head. _Great. This will be fun to get out of. _Using the soft, cushioned wall, he pushed himself up and stood silently, then cautiously took a step. Step after step, he felt his bare foot sink into the fleecy, soft floor. After walking around blindly with his arms held out for a second, his fingers brushed the opposite wall. _Huh?_ He turned back around and within seconds, his hand was on the wall he had just come from.

Taking a small step back, he ran straight into the wall, sending himself flying instantly into the opposite wall. He bolted up, bouncing back and fourth from wall to wall in mere milliseconds. He came to a slow stop, trying to mentally picture what the tiny room looked like.

Staring up, he exhaled quietly. "Where am I?" Then again, louder. "Where am I!" He listened to his own echo mysteriously ring through the cramped space. "WHERE AM I?" Not receiving an answer, he growled and pounded his fist into the plush wall. To his shock, his hand sunk deep into the once solid wall, pulling him in. Quickly, acting on instinct, he placed both of his feet on the solid part of the wall and leaned back, using his free arm to pull. But before he could stop it, his legs had been pulled in, too, and he was sucked in.

Suddenly, he was falling in a white light. He squeezed his eyes shut, blinded by the brightness. Cool winds blew up through his quills, faster, faster, faster…

"Shadow."

Pryingly, he opened his eyes. Being face down, naturally the first thing he was the ground hundreds of meters below him. _Don't panic, _he told himself mentally"How do you know my name!" he demanded, already knowing who he was dealing with.

"I have decided your punishment," began the genie, ignoring his question. He floated beside him as though his company was a complete stranger. Eyes closed, he continued. "Are you ready?"

"You can't kill me," Shadow stated calmly while using the wind to guide him into a better position. He stood in midair beside the genie, bracing himself for whatever happened next. "If this is the best you can do-"

"You cannot even begin to fathom what I am capable of. But, we are a bit short with time, so I will make this simple for you." Shadow raised an eyebrow. "When you wake up, you will be in my place, in the lamp. You must wait until you are found, then grant the wishes of whom ever happens to stumble upon you- your _master_. But," he paused to make sure Shadow was listening. "There are two things you need to remember: You cannot go free until you have granted your masters three wishes, and you cannot abuse the wish. You will have all my powers, so," he paused to looked down and smirk, "think a little this time, fool."

As he looked down, Shadow felt nothing but a pounding in his chest, a spinning in his head and eyes. No collision with the ground, no crushing impact. He was thrown back through the wall he had fallen from before he knew what had happened. He slid across the floor and lay there numbly. He groaned. _It feels like I've been cut in half. What was that? _After a few minutes of recovery, his eyes came in to focus. Gold lanterns lit with a shimmering amber fire illuminated the room, showing the plush walls he had fallen through to be a deep, majestic maroon. He slowly stood, but something wasn't right. Something was missing.

Taking a deep breath, he looked down. And there, where his legs should have been was a trailing stream of black- a genie's tail.

When Sonic ran, he ran for one of three reasons: Either he was running for the sheer adrenaline and feeling of speed, he was running from Amy, or, on rare occasion he ran to think. And this morning, as he stepped out of Tails' workshop into the brilliant, morning sun, he wanted a good thrill. While rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he smiled to himself.

Within seconds, he was into the forest, madly dodging tree after tree and maneuvering easily around anything in his way that posed a threat to him. He let the wind lap his cheeks as he dashed back and fourth. He had never cared about the chill in the air when he ran. Seeing the first, small buildings of the city flashing through the trees, he grinned his famous grin and picked up speed. _Time to paint the town blue._

Amy rolled slowly out of bed, lazily bringing up a hand to turn the knob on the back of her clock. Grabbing her housecoat, she trudged over a few boxes into her kitchen. She smiled at her white washed walls, her box filled, brand new house. She poured herself a glass of juice, set a slice of bread in the toaster and walked to her window to see the sun peaking up through the towering pine trees.

_This is nice, _she sighed happily. _It's so good to have my own house, especially being that it's in a quite neighborhood. I was getting tired of living in that awful apartment block with noisy people acting like they owned the place. Thank God for Tails! With all the technicalities of buying my own house, I don't think I could have done it without his help. _She took a sip of her juice and looked over the dozens boxes cluttering the living room. _I really should do something to help him out. He's been busy lately. _Hearing the toast popping up, she turned from the window and set the toast on a plate. Quickly, she spread a spoon of raspberry jam across it, making sure to cover the whole toast, then put the jam away. She was back at the window just in time to see a sharp, blue flash run through the trees.

"Sonic!" Running through the boxes and eating her toast at the same time, she didn't see the lamp cord lying on floor. Before she knew it, she was knocked to the ground, sending her toast flying across the room. She pushed herself up, though her chest hurt, and flew into her room. She pushed a dress over her head, flattened out the creases and then threw on a headband. Washing her hands quickly, she finger combed her hair and, being careful not to trip this time, walked back through the boxes to the kitchen to grab a container of cookies she had made the night before. Slipping on her shoes, she was out the door.


	3. Sonic vs Pavement

_One, two…_ _Thud_.

One, two, three… _Thud_.

_One… _

_two… _

Shadow let his shoulder, numb and bruised, slide down the curved wall. The rest of his body followed sluggishly. _There's no way to get through that wall again._ The silence in his mind and of the room screamed at him to do something purposeful, but his tired physical being stubbornly refused. He had only spent God knew how long trying to find a way out; nothing was working. He had yelled again- especially after discovering that his lower half was missing- but it had eventually given him a headache and raw throat.

His mind was tired, too. He knew he couldn't rely on just his strength to get him out, so he had plotted out the structure of the room, hoping to find any hidden faults that might serve him useful. There were, much to his grief, none. His last resort had been the faith that he could get back though the wall.

He ran what the genie had said through his mind again. _I have his powers. _Being he knew nothing about who or what a genie was, he didn't know if having a genie's power was a good or bad thing. _He wouldn't give me a gift as a so-called punishment. _He tipped his head back and closed his eyes, an opposing thought coming to mind. _But power is a good thing. If he could do this to me, then what am I now capable of?_

Yet just as he felt he was getting somewhere, the walls began to shake.

* * *

"Good morning, Sonic!"

Sonic thought it was funny how people assumed that he couldn't hear what was going on around him while he was running. He couldn't help but smile to himself when someone would bring it up. He heard everything perfectly fine. It was his selective hearing that blocked out a lot of what happened around him. Though he preferred to think of it as a skill he had developed over time to keep him from getting distracted by the wrong things, others, more specifically Amy, knew he used it as an excuse to ignore her.

And of course, with this in mind, it only made Amy madder as he ran by her on that fine overcast morning. So mad, in fact, that she stuck out her foot just slightly as he ran by. Just enough to tamper with his balance.

"Whoa!" Sonic yelled as he stumbled chin first into the pavement. Amy was a little surprised at her sudden action, but hid it quickly with a smug smile. She knelt down beside Sonic, who was sprawled out on the sidewalk groaning, and shook him gently on the shoulder. He cringed slightly at her touch.

"I don't think I've done that one in a long time," she said more to herself than her bruised hero. She watched him roll over and gingerly rub his chin. He examined himself carefully and took a deep breath. Looking up, his electric eyes met her's.

"Alright, you've got my attention. What do you need, Amy?"

Sitting on her legs, she began slowly. "I was thinking about Tails earlier today. He's been so busy lately… maybe we should go visit him? Get him to take a break for a bit. He worries me with all the work he's doing. He's going to overwork himself!"

"Tails knows what he's doing, Ames. I just talked to him yesterday and he told me the only reason he's working so hard is because he wants to test out the plane he's working on before the end of the week when we get that storm everyone's buzzing about. He can't take it out in the rain. Too dangerous with the lightening and all. Besides, he needs me with him when he goes and there's no way I'm getting rained on the whole time we're up there."

Amy looked blankly at him for a moment. "Storm?" She asked slowly.

"Well I've heard a few people talking about some sort of monstrous storm that's headed our way for the end of the week. Sounds like flooding to me." He pushed himself up off the pavement. "And I'm fine, thanks for asking."

"Sonic, please come with me. I just want to take these cookies up to him. We wouldn't have to stay long, just pop in and say hi and-"

"I dunno," he interrupted. "By the looks of it, we'll be getting a bit of rain this morning. I'd rather not be out in it. And it's hard to get to his house once it starts raining. The beach gets all wet and hard to walk on and then you've got all that mud to get through once you're off the beach. And I've got to finish my run, anyway."

"I thought you didn't like running in the rain, Sonic." She persisted. "You've said so yourself. In fact, I know I've heard this excuse before." Her arms folded across her chest stubbornly.

He opened his mouth to speak, but a deep rumble of thunder interrupted him. The two of them stood still, looking around and feeling the vibration gently shake the ground around them. Sonic took advantage of the moment.

"I'll talk to you later. I've gotta get going."

"Sonic-"

But before she could say anything else, he was gone. She growled dangerously to herself. "One day I swear…" She looked up at the cloudy sky. "Stupid thunder." She turned to the trees lining the park. For a long minute, she stood looking at the trees blankly. Before she knew it, her feet had begun moving towards them, slowly at first, then faster and faster until she was inches away from the trees. Coming to a skidding halt, she looked for a way through the suburb; any possible path. There was nothing but the sporadic pattern of the trees. In fact, she couldn't even see the beach through the density of it. But she was determined. And that was more than enough to get her through.

* * *

Shadow watched as the flames of the lamps flickered. Their gentle light vibrated with each rumble of thunder, casting an unsettled atmosphere through the room and into its inhabitant. He had noticed that if he were to stay silent, he could hear everything going on outside the lamp, from the waves lapping against the shore to the wind sifting through the trees. Hearing this, he had figured that the genie had kept the lamp where he had originally found it- on the beach. But how long would he have to wait for someone to find him? Weeks? Months? Could they hear him if he yelled? Was he even visible?

Lying on his back, he listened. Waves, wind, trees. It was soothing, but sickening. The longer he did nothing, the worse he felt. But the more he tried, the less he accomplished. Waves, wind, trees.

"This is going nowhere fast," he finally told the taunting silence. He decided that if there was nothing he could do at the moment, then he wouldn't need to suffer through it consciously. Placing his hands behind his head, he let his eyes droop closed.


End file.
